WEST CHESTER – The former Coatesville detective whose desire for an upscale lifestyle allegedly led him to steal thousands of dollars from his police department and union will plead guilty to the charges later this month, according to authorities.

Gerald Pawling is reportedly prepared to admit to accusations that he stole more than $40,000 from the Coatesville Police Benevolent Association, the union he helped found in 2000 to represent the city’s police officers in contract negotiations.

He will also admit to thefts of more than $7,000 from the city police evidence room and $9,000 from the Coatesville Police Athletic League, and to a case of felony insurance fraud, the prosecutor handing the cases against him confirmed Thursday.

Before the allegations came to light, the work and character of Pawling were praised by the police officers and prosecutors he worked with over a 17-year career.

Advertisement

With no agreement in place as to what his sentence will be, Pawling is expected to throw himself on the mercy of the court, allowing the judge assigned to hear the matter to determine his fate.

Pawling, 43, of Caln, was originally arrested in August and charged with eight counts of forgery and 51 counts of theft.

Authorities contended at the time that he stole the money by forging the names of other officers in the union on checks from an account set up to run fundraising activities while he was acting as the organization’s treasurer.

District Attorney Thomas Hogan said in a press conference then that Pawling had used the money he stole to maintain a lifestyle “above his means,” including a suburban home with a pool, a hot tub, and a high-end home theater system.

Pawling, who had been publicly lauded as a trusted and committed police investigator, was later charged with the additional crimes in January and March. Those included the siphoning of money from the union’s credit account at Staples to buy expensive electronic equipment; the thefts from PAL; the thefts of sealed envelopes containing cash confiscated during criminal investigations from the police department’s evidence locker, and the commission of insurance fraud involving a camera Pawling allegedly stole from the evidence room and later claimed had been swiped from his home.

On Thursday, Deputy District Attorney Carlos Barraza, the veteran prosecutor leading the case against Pawling, informed Common Pleas Judge David Bortner during a case status call hearing that he had been told by Pawling’s attorney, Daniel Bush of West Chester, that Pawling intended to enter an open guilty plea to charges in all three cases against him.

An open plea of guilty means that the two sides in a prosecution have not been able to come to terms on a proposed sentence for the defendant, and instead have decided to leave it up to the judge to make the final determination on how much, if any, prison time or probation is warranted. In normal circumstances the sentencing is deferred until after the completion of a pre-sentencing investigation by the county’s Adult Probation Department and the submission of any sentencing recommendations from the two sides.

Bortner, who will begin a trial in his courtroom on Monday, told Barraza that he would not have enough time to preside over a guilty plea involving Pawling next week, and suggested that the parties come in the week of April 14. No firm date was set.

Barraza, contacted later, declined to comment on how many charges Pawling would plead guilty to, or what recommendation his office would make to Bortner concerning sentencing.

Bush, who did not appear in court Thursday, declined to comment on the specifics of Thursday’s proceedings. “If things play out as it was represented in court today, I will have extensive comment at that time,” he said in an e-mail to the Daily Local news.

The case against Pawling has gone through twists and turns since he was first charged.

Initially, Pawling had been said to be cooperating with Chester County Detectives assigned to the case since the thefts were reported to them in July, and he waived his preliminary hearing in that case in August. But when he was arrested in January and charged with the additional thefts, Bush declared that his client had every intention of fighting the new charges against him. Bush and Barraza even clashed in February over what evidence might be presented at a preliminary hearing on the new charges before District Magistrate Judge Jeffrey Valocchi of East Caln.

Then came the third set of charges involving the insurance fraud allegations last month, and on Tuesday Bush appeared before Valocchi in order to waive his client’s right to a preliminary hearing – a move typically made by defendants who intended to accept a non-trial disposition to the charges against them such as a guilty plea.